ESPN announced yesterday that Kentucky has drawn Texas in its 2014 SEC/Big 12 Challenge game. The Cats will host the Longhorns in Rupp Arena as one of two marquee matchups in the challenge, the other being Florida at Kansas.

Myles Turner is coming to town! Rick Barnes too!

Kentucky vs. Eastern KentuckyLexington, KYSunday, December 7

One day after the Texas game was made official, UK announced Eastern Kentucky will make the short drive to Rupp Arena that same weekend. The Cats and Colonels will meet on a Sunday; game time to be determined.

Kentucky vs. ProvidenceLexington, KYTBD

Providence travels to Lexington in 2014 to complete the two-game agreement that included a game in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center last season. UK won in Brooklyn, 79-65.

Kentucky vs. North CarolinaLexington, KYTBD

The UK-UNC regular season rivalry returns to Rupp Arena in 2014. We last saw the Tar Heels in Lexington in 2011 when Anthony Davis swatted John Henson to take the game, 73-72.

UK will meet UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic, a new three-year round-robin event featuring UK, UCLA, North Carolina and Ohio State. The Cats and Bruins will play in the second game at 3:30 pm in the United Center. It will be the two teams’ first meeting since 2006 when Ramel, Joe, Randolph and the boys lost in the Maui Invitational.

Kentucky @ LouisvilleLouisville, KYTBD

We’ll be traveling to the Yum! Center (groan) to watch UK vs. Louisville as part of the home-and-home series that dates back to 1983. The game will likely be on Saturday, December 27 or Saturday, January 3.

You mean put the guy’s name in the rafters who was negotiating his next coaching stop mid season? And the guy that anointed his son starting PG when he clearly was not close to elite? And the guy that basically spent as much time recruiting as I do reading interior decorating books? I can go on. Nice guy but not an elite coach.

Huh^^ …. so your saying Tubby did those things because he was not white. Don’t bring race into the discussion please. The trajectory of UK toward the end of Tubby’s reign was down, down, down and you know it. Whose fault is that?

We all hated Saul Smith (mostly because he had a better brother who didn’t come, and people figured Tubby lost better PGs because he had Saul), but he actually put up pretty good assists numbers and was ranked 9th all time at UK.

But Delk and Tubby should both be in the rafters. Now that Tubby’s gone from the school he left us for, and now that we have another title since, we can welcome him back. He gave us a title, Rick’s players or not.

Kansas, UNC, UCLA, Louisville, Providence plus Big 12 team- pretty solid schedule. I still think we should add quality mid and lower major teams. I don’t want to play anyone who finishes the season 5-25 in a poor conference

IDK. Last season was worse when it was 1 vs 2, and wasn’t the nightcap. My guess last season was it was ESPN’s love with Wiggins/Parker. This season, I guess it’s their love for Duke. Maybe summed up, it’s their love for Duke.

I think Duke will be solid, but I think this class is overrated. Grayson Allen looks lost on the court. Maybe in a few year’s he’ll be solid. Okafor is legit. Jones is solid, but not incredible. Winslow’s a nice player.

Kentucky should win all of these games. I’m a little worried about the Kansas game, but for once, it being at the beginning of the year may actually benefit us because Kansas seriously has more roster turnover next year than we will. The Louisville game also is a bit of a red flag… we will obviously be much better than they’ll be, but it being the the YUM Center, big rivalry game… you never know what’ll happen.

With the twins et al returning, plus the summer trip, I’m inclined to agree. UNC gives us fits, and Texas, Kansas and Louisville will not be easy, but we should be able to handle them unless the frosh cause chemistry problems. Remember how many of those teams are running with new Point Guards, while we finally are not. Hopefully the twins don’t lose the edge they developed (and Cal doesn’t forget how to coach them), the frosh all play in the summer trip and Cal already has a grasp of his rotation once the season starts.

If we make it through all of those, we’re coming hard for Florida especially. Bring out the Swamp People Fat Heads.

It’s hard to tell, but if that was sarcasm OK…otherwise how about we not lose 9 games, 1 of them to South Carolina? I loved the tournament turnaround, but let’s be honest last year’s team was struggling.

We might not be a eight seed but expect a stacked region of Wisconsin, UL and two more like them. I say with conference being perhaps as bad as its ever going to be next year we are looking at a 3 seed at best.

That was not smart. Wedding should be after Derby and before Labor Day. That way you don’t chance it interfering with football or basketball. Even if it’s an off weekend, your anniversary will fall on games some years.

The non conf schedule needs to be strong because other than Fla and maybe Ark and LSU the conf will once again be the worse of the power conferences. UK is suppose to play in Brooklyn. Probably end up being St Johns, maybe Seton Hall. I don’t think anyone ever gets the fact that you have to have a few breathers , like NKU or UNC Ashviille on the schedule as every game can’t be against a national title contender. Yes, you can play tough mid majors like Belmont and perhaps an in state team like EKU since in these cases we don’t have to give a return game to them at their place, it works. If you go undefeated in a bad conf, win the tourney and play well out of conf , it doesn’t matter that much if your in a bad conf or not. Fla did as did Wichita St. They both got 1 seeds. No way we go 40-0 but I will be suprsed if we have more than 4 losses.

I know Matt poo poo’d the idea, but didn’t Karl Towns (or one of the other recruits) let it slip that they were going to Spain? Matt said it would be crazy expensive and mentioned a couple other reasons that he thought it was probably not happening. But maybe it’s not crazy since they are being hush-hush about it now?